Are you a crusader or a pilgrim?

This week I commented on Isaiah Berlin's insight that American optimism leads to an activist (and perhaps imperialist) approach to international affairs.  The world is seen as fundamentally morphable and inherently ready for "Americanization".   American optimism doesn't just effect political life.  It has a deep effect on American religiousity as well.  D.G. Hart points this out in his The Lost Soul of American Protestantism. There he argues that both liberal and conservative Protestants take an activistic and crusading approach to the world.  This stems from their mutual rootedeness in Pietism.  Hart contrasts what he calls the "confessional" approach with the more Pietistic approaches to faith and life he sees among liberals and conservatives alike:

"If confessionalism constitutes a way of getting religion distinct from the patterns that have dominated American Protestantism, its difference can perhaps best be seen in two contrasting types of Christian devotion, that of crusader and that of pilgrim.  For pietist Protestantism the ideal believer is one who is constantly active in extending the kingdom of God.  The crusader, accordingly, is always on the lookout for ways to gain new converts and make the good deeds of believers more obvious before the watching world, thereby expanding Christian influence.  In other words, the converstionist notion of Protestantism not only relies on the work of full-time revivalists and Christian individuals  who share their faith with unbelievers but also results in strenous efforts to realize the righteous ways of the faithful, whether in various crusades to reform public life or in less noticeable endeavors designed to show the difference that faith makes in daily affairs.  Pietist Protestantism is inherently activistic; for its adherents the Christian life is one of perpetual motion as converts, secure in their salvation, seek to take their faith to all corners of the globe and to all spheres of human existence.

Confessional Protestantism's devotion is characteristically withdrawn and secluded compared to pietism's aggressive and extroverted ways.  For confessionalism a good bit of the Christian life includes a recognition of the spiritual dangers that still afflict believers and their consequent need for spiritual help and sustenance that the ministry of the church is designed to provide.  Being a Christian, then, means participating in churchly rites and ceremonies, not simply as means of inspiration for evangelism and Christian activism, but primarily to learn dependence on grace and to persevere through life's doubts and temptations.  Pietists have typically complained that the confessional Protestant conception of Christian devotion is too passive if not selfish because it is so oriented to believers rather than those outside the faith.  Confessionalism, it is said, exhibits a ghetto mentality.  But this complaint is based on an assumption about the nature of Chrisitan devotion that confessionalism rejects-namely, that conversion results in strong believers who are so powerful that the true measure of spiritual zeal is what they accomplish either by winning new converts or by performing moral deeds.  Confessionalism's understanding of the Christian life as a pilgrimage, however, assumes the weakness and fraility of believers and measures success by the degree to which they continue to trust in God and hope for the world to come despite the trials and sufferings of this life.  This outlook even extends to the direction and purpose of history; where confessionalists have regarded human history as a cosmic drama that awaits consummation according to the will of God, pietists have swung between optimism and despair in assessing the relative proximity of history's conclusion." (171-172)

Now if these are the terms of the debate, pietist crusader or confessionalist pilgrim, I'll probably go with the latter over the former.  But this might be a false disjuncture.  Couldn't one hold together a passion for missionally engaging the world, undertaken with bold humility, with a strong eschatological horizion reminding the believer that they always remain a pilgrim, albeit a pilgrim charged with witness in word and deed to the present and coming Kingdom of which they are a citizien.  To be fair, Hart's book is a historical study, not an excerise in constructive theology.  Hart's work may really reflect what is at the heart of the soul of American Protestantism.  But I'm not sure a return to a Christendom confessional self-understanding is a big advance over an unchastened activistic pietism.

Comments

[Robefre]

Scot

Yesterday, 3/6/5, Dr Rogers, at Shadow Hills Bapt in Lubbock, Tx., addressed the underlying question here(I think)--to be pietistic or confessional--fairly creatively by describing the placement of the prospect of our witness on a sliding scale from 1 to 10, 1 being ready/prepared for and presented with the question of Jesus' Lordship and forgiveness, and 10 being so far removed from the converstation as to state at best 'Bible? so what?'. Thus it behooves us as evangelists to be empathetic to the overall conversation of the prospect and be ready with the verses and scripture (pietistic?)of salvation for the 1st position, but to be patient and wise as the serpent in engaging discussion with the 10th position prospect, taking into account the conditioning and callous of the prospect which might require relationship(confession?) before piety. Using as example Jesus' careful talk with a sinner in John 4. Beginning with a subtle compliment and moving by increments toward her spiritual desire, sinfulness, then object of her search.

Robefre

[business alarm systems]

What i do regularly is what i know is right. Too much exposure on conventional things makes an individual lost.